1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a switchgear cabinet with a cabinet body, a body having open sides that can be closed off at least partially by one or several lateral walls, wherein an air conditioning unit is arranged in an area of at least one lateral wall, through which heat can be removed from or supplied to the cabinet body.
2. Description of Prior Art
Such a cabinet body is known from German Patent Reference DE 41 35 894 C1. As the air conditioning unit, this switchgear cabinet has a cooling unit having fans and heat exchangers. The cooling unit is arranged in a housing, which is inserted into a cutout in a vertical lateral wall. In order to retrofit an existing switchgear cabinet with the cooling unit, it is necessary to rework the appropriate lateral wall, or respectively to install a new one.
An air conditioning arrangement is known from German Patent Reference DE 43 13 022, which is installed on an exterior of the lateral wall. The lateral wall has appropriate openings for a spatial connection with an interior of the switchgear cabinet.
German Patent Reference DE 37 10 566 C2 describes an air conditioning unit which is placed on the lateral wall which is embodied as a sheet metal cover. It is necessary, in a manner similar to the teachings of German Patent Reference DE 43 13 022, to cut out openings from the sheet metal cover.
It is one object of this invention to provide a switchgear cabinet of the type previously mentioned, which can be easily equipped with an air conditioning unit.
This object is achieved with an intermediate wall arranged parallel and spaced apart from the lateral wall and facing the interior of the cabinet body. The air conditioning unit is arranged in the space enclosed by the lateral wall and the intermediate wall.
With this design in accordance with the invention of a switchgear cabinet, the lateral wall becomes a part of the air conditioning unit, so that the cost for parts can be considerably reduced. The outer geometry of the switchgear cabinet is not changed by the installation of the air conditioning unit which, for one, offers advantages in appearance. Furthermore, it is thus possible to take limited space conditions in the surroundings of the switchgear cabinet into consideration. Because the cooling device is associated with the lateral wall it is also possible to transfer heat with the environment directly through the area of the lateral wall. This results in good efficiency of the cooling device.
In one preferred embodiment of this invention, the cabinet body has a rack of vertical profiled frame sections and horizontal depth and width struts. The intermediate wall and the lateral wall are fastened to the rack, and the width of the intermediate space extending vertically with respect to the lateral wall is equal to or less than the corresponding vertical profiled frame sections or the depth, or respectively the width struts. The air conditioning unit thus designed hardly reduces the interior of the switchgear cabinet, so that the installation space for built-in units is only slightly reduced. In particular, the vertical profiled frame sections can still be used as attachment points for built-in units.
For example, the air conditioning unit can be designed as a heat exchanger. In that case the intermediate wall has one or several openings, through which air from the interior of the switchgear cabinet is conducted to the heat exchanger. Thereafter, the conditioned air can again be returned into the interior of the switchgear cabinet.
Thus the heat exchanger has a conduit system arranged in a meander shape, through which coolant is conducted and whose cooling surfaces face the intermediate space formed between the intermediate and the lateral walls. The conduit system is connected via connecting elements to a supply unit arranged outside of the switchgear cabinet. Effective cooling of the air can take place against the meander-shaped conduit system. The conduit sections of the conduit system which are arranged crosswise to the flow direction are preferably arranged offset from each other, vertically in relation to the lateral wall. The flowing air is deflected several times by this simple step to achieve an optimal flow around the conduit sections.
Another embodiment of this invention is distinguished because the vertical intermediate wall has in its upper area the openings embodied as inlet openings, and the intermediate wall supports one or several fans in its lower area, which draw the air out of the intermediate space and return the air into the interior of the cabinet body. Air then flows again back into the intermediate space through the inlet openings.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of this invention, the intermediate wall has two or more rows of openings, and the openings are arranged symmetrically with respect to a center transverse axis and a center longitudinal axis extending in a plane of the intermediate wall. For one, a simplification of mounting is thus achieved, and it is possible to achieve an even air flow and guidance in many variations by even distribution of the openings.